If you are unfamiliar with the Great Thanksgiving Catastrophe of '07, you can read about it here: http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Rivendell/465943/.

Meanwhile, let me give you the latest and greatest, because really, what is a holiday without a story of chaos and mayhem from LeniLand?

I spent the week preparing for the family to invade. I paced myself, so as to not burn out or cause a huge flare. I planned the cooking, the cleaning, the arranging...it was perfect. It was beautiful.

Everything was going according to plan, and we were down to 15 minutes to arrival. The food in the oven was perfectly warmed, the last minute things on the stove were set out, and about to be finished, the rolls were perfectly risen, awaiting their turn in the oven.

I stepped away from the stove, and as I did, realized I left a cupboard open. I swung it shut, and as it was closing, I heard an unfamiliar sound. With that, my world, exploded, literally. The cupboard in question held all of my glass and ceramic bakeware. And a shelf had just given way. As the items came crashing out of the cupboard, some of them collided with others in midair, causing explosions of glass to go flying in every direction. Others hit the floor, only to have heavier dishes land on top of them. Some dishes were really sturdy and did not break, but did bounce, right into my ankles. Others flew into the next room.

I admit it, there was screaming. I had breaking glass all around me, and it just kept coming and coming, I was screaming for it to stop! I was also waiting to see how bad the bleeding would be. (Can you believe I did not get one single cut???) When everything came to a stand-still, there was broken glass covering the entire kitchen floor. The WHOLE THING. In retrospect, it was actually quite a beautiful array of colors. "This artwork brought to you by Pyrex and Corelle." If only I had taken a picture. I was too busy getting my heart rate back to normal.

Of course, that's when I notice the broken bits in the rolls and the pans on the stove. Thankfully, the gravy was covered and safe. All in all, not too bad. I had not yet removed the food from the oven, so it could have been SO much worse!

The clean up took forever.  Sweeping, then vacuuming, followed by mopping.  And we're still finding glass.

Finally, we were able to back track, wash out the dishes, and start again.

So here are the real blessings in all of this.

* I stepped to the right, just as this happened. This all would have come down on my head, otherwise.
* There were no children in the room. They had all vacated moments before.
* The puppy was not at my feet. She is almost always at my feet when I am cooking, and I really shudder to think what would have happened to her if she had been.
* Only one tray of rolls were ruined.
* This happened when my husband was home to help me with it. He really is my hero. He always swoops in and rescues me.
* Company had not already arrived. I'm thinking especially of my 6 yo nephew.
* The cut-crystal dish my mom got me for Christmas last year was sitting on the edge of the counter, and I really don't know how it survived, but it didn't get hit! It's just stuff, but I would have been bummed if it had broken.
* We found the shard of glass in the dog's water bowl (which was across the room) before one of them drank out of it.

I'm sure there's more, but that's a good list there, so I'll be happy with that.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Hope your day was amazingly uneventful! ;o)